Activision CEO Kotick Among Top-Paid CEOs In U.S

Videogame publisher Activision Blizzard Inc’s <ATVI.O> Chief Executive Robert Kotick received a total compensation of $64.9 million last year, making him one of the top paid CEOs in the United States.

Kotick’s 2012 total compensation includes about $56 million in stock awards, while there were no stock awards for 2011. His base salary doubled to $2 million, according to regulatory filings on Friday. (http://r.reuters.com/bew67t)

Kotick, 50, also a board member of Coca-Cola Co <KO.N>, was paid $8.33 million in 2011 by Santa Monica-based Activision.

The company’s revenues and net income, however, rose only in single digits for 2012, slower than the growth rate it saw in 2011.

Activision’s Kotick makes over three times the $21 million pay package received by Goldman Sach Group Inc’s <GS.N> CEO Lloyd Blankfein in 2012, and it is 50 percent higher than Walt Disney Co <DIS.N> CEO Robert Iger’s $40.2 million compensation in 2012.

Kotick has been a director and CEO of Activision Inc, since February 1991 until July 2008, when he became CEO of Activision Blizzard in connection with the combination of Activision and Vivendi Games.

(Reporting by Thyagaraju Adinarayan in Bangalore; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)